That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Olivia Williams

Episode Date: July 4, 2021

In this episode Gaby talks to the supremely talented actress Olivia Williams! They chat about her incredible career, from the film ‘The Father’ working with Sir Anthony Hopkins, TV series ‘The Nevers’ and upcoming UK version of one of Gaby’s favourite series called ‘Call My Agent’. Plus, Olivia tells an amazing story about working with Kevin Costner in his film ‘The Postman’ back in the 90’s, being a part of the phenomenon film ‘The Sixth Sense’ , and when she was in 'Friends', remember that!? They giggle about Olivia snogging every ‘80’s sexy actor and how short they all are. Plus, Olivia talks positively about her incredible survival from pancreatic cancer and the work she does for the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK. For more information on the sponsor of this episode Symprove visit www.symprove.com or follow-on Instagram on @symproveyourlife. To claim 15% off the 12-week programme use discount code GABY15 at checkout. For new customers only in the UK. Symprove customer care team are available 8-8 to answer any questions or queries, call 01252 413600. For more information and to donate to the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK www.pancreaticcancer.org.ukProduced by Cameo Productions, music by Beth Macari.  Join the conversation on Instagram and Twitter @gabyroslin #thatgabyroslinpodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, Gabby Roslyn here. Thank you so much for listening. What a lovely time I had chatting to the supremely talented actress Olivia Williams. We chat all about her incredible career from the film The Father, working with Sir Anthony Hopkins, to the TV series The Nevers, and her upcoming UK version of one of my favourite series called Call My Agent. Plus, an amazing story about working with Kevin Costner in his film The Postman back in the 1990s. Also, being a part of the phenomenal. A phenomenally successful film, The Sixth Sense, with Bruce Willis.

And she talks about when she was in Friends. Remember that? We giggle about her snogging every 80s sexy actor and how short they all are. Plus, she talks very openly and positively about her incredible survival from pancreatic cancer and the vital work she does for the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK. And we'll put a link for that charity for you to donate in the episode description. you enjoy listening to this incredible woman as much as I did chatting to her. I am hugely thankful that this episode is sponsored by one of my favourite companies, SimProve.

It's a food supplement containing live and active bacteria, which has done wonders for both mine and my family's health. More information at Simprove.com with discount code G-A-B-Y-15 for 15% of the 12-week program. I'll tell you more about them later. Please can I ask you a favour? Would you mind please following and subscribing by pressing the follow or subscribe button on the show? Now, I have to tell you, this really honestly does not cost any money. It's completely free. And then if you wouldn't mind, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, which is the purple app on your iPhone or iPad. You simply scroll down to the bottom of all of the episodes, and you'll see the stars where you can tap to rate and press write a review.

It would mean the world to us. Thank you so much. Olivia, there's so much that I want to talk to you about and there's so many things that I know you're not going to say, but I might just ask you anyway, to do with Kevin Costner and Bruce Willis, but we'll go there later. I have to. It'll be weird if I didn't.

You are such an incredible actress. At the same time that you made me weep with the father recently, you also made me sit on my sofa with my jaw on the floor thinking, what on earth am I watching when it came to the Nevers? I mean, it's incredible. So I don't know where I'm going to start. I think I'm going to start with the father.

Congratulations. What a film. What a film. Yeah. Yes. I don't come overall modest when I'm not blowing my own trumpet, but when you say, what a film, I agree with you, what a film. because I'm very proud of it and I love the final product.

And I loved it when it was a play. I read it on paper with no actors involved. Just the writing on the paper elicited a vast emotional response in me. I couldn't do the play, but I said to the translator and adapter, Christopher Hampton, And if anything ever happens to this and it becomes anything else, either transfers or becomes a movie or a television film or anything, I'll come and make the tea. I just want to be involved. And this never happens, Gabby, I swear to you, it never happens when they did make it into

a movie. They came back to me, which was just amazing. So you were, they had you in mind from the very beginning. Not in the very beginning. The very beginning, it was a play on stage in France. And so they didn't have me in mind then. But when it came to England, and I don't know how many other people they sent it to. And an amazing cast did it as a play in London.

And in Bath, I think. So I don't know at what stage of that. I got to read the script. But I wasn't available. And I wanted to be in it so much and couldn't be. And it was, I never forgot it. It kept going round my head. And as you said when we've spoken about it before, you know, that it just doesn't leave you.

And it didn't leave me even in text form, you know, even on paper, it didn't leave me. So to see it so realised by the extraordinary other actors we had, you know, each of whom was just pitch perfect. You know, I love Imogen Pute's performance. She plays one of the other carers. in the show and she's got this wonderful, open, wide, smiling, joyful face that as it appears that Anthony Hopkins is not well and her face just falls in this sort of heartbreaking realization that some of us may have experienced as we realize our loved ones are suffering from dementia. What it does is how it plays with time and then it plays with your emotion,

but not in a cruel way. I mean, I haven't stopped thinking about it. It's one of the very few films that stays with you, but really seems to affect you. I mean, I was very lucky because I saw it early on because I remember interviewing the cast and the producer about it before it came out. And so I sat at home and watched it with my husband,

and we both were flawed, and we talk about it. It's as if it was a part of our life. It's quite incredible. And we can't. You were sensational in it, but I am a super fan, so there we go. I've said it now. There, it's out there. But Anthony Hopkins, goodness me.

I mean, oh, he pulls every heartstring. He makes you laugh. You cry. Isn't he incredible? Wow. He is. He is. And just to, you know, you meet an icon and someone who, you know, I've listened to his voice

and watched him. I remember at drama school, he was a cult figure for us. And it's just, it is a joy when you turn up on set. And that person is as extraordinary as they are, as you hope they would be. And then add a bit, you know, there's the personal thing of, we had this incredibly difficult scene where we had to discuss a chicken and whether or not a man had a chicken or didn't have a chicken. And we had to say chicken about 74 times, various times.

points and after about three chickens, I had to interrupt his chicken and then after I said about seven he had to interrupt. And we rehearsed that scene in his dressing room about four hours unbroken chicken repetitions. And by the end of it, we were in pieces. We were both laughing hysterically and weeping because we weren't going to get it right. And so whenever I watch that scene, which is incredibly distressing, but also funny at the same time, because these are These are crazy conversations you find yourself having. There isn't a man with a chicken. And the compassion of the peace that sees that situation is both absurd

and life changing for someone. They're holding on to every piece of reality. And in that moment, the reality for him is the chicken. Yes. Actually, that's one of those scenes that is in my head. that has stayed in my heart. But now you've said that, that sort of gives it even another level

that you two went like that. I mean, I imagine him, now I know you're very averse to social media and I can understand that. I'm not averse, Gabby. The truth is that, I know, people say, oh, you must not suffer from FOMO. It's because I have the worst FOMO in the world.

It's because if I went on social media, we wouldn't be able to have this conversation because I'll be, hang on, hang on, I've just got another few tunnels to go down before I can emerge. I would be the worst social media addict if I had any access to it at all. And that is why it's not because I'm holy than now

and I've got a big shiny halo. It's because I'm the lowest form of addict and I couldn't have it because I wouldn't function. That's very honest of you. No, that's very honest of you. Yes. But I have to say that Anthony Hopper, Hopkins, Instagram is a joy.

So if anybody ever lets you just look over their shoulder when it's not on your phone or your computer, so you can't go back again, he's a joy. He's a joy in every single word. Wait, he's one of those people that I've always wanted to interview because I wanted to sit there because I imagine that he has this wicked sense of humour and loves a giggle. He does.

He's got this, which you see in the father, he's got this light in his eyes. He's mischievous. That's my word for him. He's mischievous. And he is a mimic. And so, you know, nothing and nobody is safe. And he's a sort of a real lateral thinker. He just goes out, you know, at extraordinary angles. It's not that sort of sitting down and going. And then in 1974, you know, which can drag a little actor. And I actually do it. I'm one of the worst offenders of that. But he, no, it's all there. And the fact that he's got on Instagram, whatever you have, account at all, is, you know, miraculous to me. And millions of followers. So the file that everyone has to see, I mean, any way that they can.

But so back to the Nevers. So those are the two things that I've seen you in most recently. And the Nevers is, it's sort of unexplainable. It's superheroes in Victorian times, but there's sex and there's, there's, there's violence like you've never seen and this extraordinary cast and you think you're watching one, it does your head in because you think you're watching one thing. You're seeing all these gentlemen round the table like all sort of Tories and they're all discussing what's going

on in Victorian and then all hell breaks loose and there's superpowers and there's super fit humans. There's extraordinary powers. Then there's you. maybe not what people first imagine you to be, and then there's sex and there's debauchery. It's sort of like everyone's fantasy that they think that they don't want or need, but once they start, they're not going to get out of that one.

They're just going to stay with it. I mean, it's everything. I'm so pleased that you said all those things and the word that and then their sex came up. I hope you're aware, Gabby, three or four times in that sentence. But, and then there's sex. But it's, no, it's, it is all those things. The sort of postage stamp pitch is Victorian superheroes.

They know if people have been having these powers since the 1950s, when the Marvel comics started, I may have got my dates wrong. I'm not an expert. This has the premise that if you had special powers in Victorian times, what would happen to you? And if you had special powers and you were a woman, what would happen to you? And the answer is you'd probably be stuck in some weird asylum for people who are different, diverse or misunderstood. And we work it from there.

And it goes into some really deep psychological studies of one character, Malady, whose special superhero powers have sort of turned in on themselves. and turned her into a really, really dark psychological power of evil. But it's as much to do with how she's treated by society as to do with her powers. So there are some very, very serious sociological and historical reflections to be made from this wacky show that's as much about inventions and steampunk London as it is about about social change. I found myself quoting it the other day and getting it terribly confused. Yes. I suddenly said, oh no, but it was a quote, I don't want to give anything

away, but it was a quote about something quite big in it. And then I was really embarrassed and I said, oh my God, that's the Nevers. That's, that's not the news that I, it was very embarrassing. I shouldn't actually admit it, but I did. I got it all confused with our government and what they said and realized I was quoting the Nevers. But it does have that kind of thing. You know, if I listen to a very interesting program on Radio 4, which is the foundable truth as far as I know, about migraine.

And it was saying that one of the reasons so little research has been done about migraine is because it tended to be suffered on the whole by women and tend to get worse when they were menstruating. And so, you know, we ask ourselves, why was no research done about migraine, you know, in nothing known about it until recently. And that's because all the doctors at the time were men. And they just put it down to their wives, mothers, daughters, housemaid,

having bad headache or being of a nervous condition. And it's only now that we're looking back and going, how did we treat these people if they were women and they were different? And the answer is we locked them up. Yes, yes. So it's an interesting, it's an interesting premise. It's like how did we treat difference and diversity in another age? But then it's also a fantasy and it's, you know, it's just Weeden's extraordinary brain.

It's got parallel universes and time jumps and and huge elements of sci-fi, beautiful, beautiful visual effects. You know, there's bonfire Annie, who carries fire in her hands and then don't get me started on Michelle Clapton and the costumes. I mean, my character purely exists really in costume. When you take the costume off, I can't do the character at all. My characterisation is entirely contained within my corset. No, you're an actress. You could do anything with anything. I don't believe that. I don't believe it's all done through a corset. It's a pretty, pretty severe corset because my character has a kind of spinal conditions. So we decided that the corset is actually what's holding her upright, which...

Are you being serious? Yeah, yeah. We decided that, you know, my character is in a wheelchair, which has been another education for me of learning about disability politics the hard way when you realise that the set has been built so that your chair doesn't go through a door. And we had a scene outside where at a funeral we were all supposed to step forward and throw rose petals onto the coffin. But my wheelchair got stuck in the mud, so that bit got cut. And you just go, oh, okay, that's how disability politics work in the workplace. It's, you know, journey of discovery.

My job is amazing for that. And the only sort of cruelty is, you know, that I'm very lucky that I get to stand up and walk away from that situation. And that it made me have an inkling of what it's like when you can't. Now, as promised, I'd like to tell you more about our fantastic sponsor of this episode, Simprove. I love telling everyone about this company. And I've been raving about them for years before we ever started working together. I love them so much. Now it's a food supplement containing live and active bacteria to support gut health and a balanced microbiome.

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So we were talking about Anthony Hopkins and I'm really sorry that I have to go there. But it would be so remiss. We're going to talk about call my agent, which I'm obsessed with in a moment. But we have to go backwards. We just have to go to Bruce Willis and Kevin Costner only because I had a dream about Kevin Costner

the night before I was going to interview him and I was too embarrassed to go and do the interview after the dream I'd had. Was Kevin Costner like my dream? And I'm not going to tell you what the dream was. I'm imagining. We got on very well. I don't know how many of your listeners were even alive then. But anyway, take yourself back in imagination to the 90s.

And Kevin Costner had made and won Oscars for dancers with wolves. and he'd been unbelievably attractive. I don't want to objectify him in no way out. And he'd made Waterworld, which had been a memorable money loser and flop allegedly. Anyway, and I was just starting out. I've been acting for eight years, but I hadn't done much on screen at all. And I got a call that he wanted, that there was to go on tape. This is how long ago it was, Gabby.

It was 30 years ago. It was on a VHS, you know, you made VHS tapes in an office in Soho and sent them physically to Los Angeles in an envelope. And then they would be watched. And I didn't think anybody watched them. I thought it went into just a big dumping ground. But Kevin Kossner, to his eternal, credit, watched my video and decided I, he wanted me to be in his movie. And it was just a

sort of bizarre turnaround of events. I wasn't really sure he was. I had no idea how powerful he was, but he was the producer and the director. And, and, and that, you know, there were people who, you know, if he called them, they, they would faint. I was very pretentious young actress who wanted to be on stage in Shakespeare. And so when my agent said that he wanted to speak to me, I was like, I'm busy, I'll get, you know, I'm busy, you know, learning a sonnet or something. And I talked to him in my own good time.

And then he said he wanted me to audition again. And it was 15 quid to every time you taped a VHS tape and sent it off to America. And I couldn't see how doing another tape, the same circumstances was going to be any advance on what I'd done before. I was like, I've done a tape with nobody there talking to a wall. And I, you know, I'm going to spend 100 quid on trying to get, you know, an accent coach to improve my accent. I'll buy a new outfit.

And then I won't do whatever it was you liked in the first tape and I'll never hear from you again. So I was like, sorry, I'm not doing another tape. We need to move forward. And he's like, really? Is that really what you want to say? I was like, yes, that is what I want to say. And he went, well, I was great talking to you and put the phone down. And my age, I said, what do you say? What do you say? What are you saying? I was like, well, I told him I wasn't going to do another tape. And fortunately, and I don't recommend this course of action to any other young ambitious drama student. He wanted the character who was bloody-minded and contrary. And so I got the job. He flew me out to Los Angeles a couple of days later. And because also we were under the gun, they were under gun. They were already shooting.

They didn't have a leading lady. I went over, did an audition in his office for the executives at Warner Brothers. And then I never came home. They flew me straight out to the set. And I started filming. So it was bizarre. It was absolutely bizarre time. Oh my goodness.

And it was like the last days of the Roman Empire of filmmaking. know we were they it was a very high budget movie there was you know we had catering we they sort of owned the the town we were filming in and in metalline falls Washington state there would be great tents it was like it was like it was like Henry the fifth there were these some tents as far as the eye could see for catering with main lobster being flown in and and this man who i mean i was i'd worked in theater they don't even pay for your bus fare you don't take your own pet luncheon. They said, what do you want in your trailer?

I just don't know. I was like, food, a meal? I have a very good friend who was my stand in, her job. I had a stand in. I had somebody's job was to stand there in the sort of beating sun while they set up the shot. And she became my best mate. And she caught me like scooping the entire plate of cookies

from craft service into my handbag. And she got hold of my hand. This is the same as. as being an addict for, you know, social media. She got hold of my hand. She said, Olivia, the cookies will be here tomorrow. And I was like, but they're free. There's free food.

Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, and that became a motto of our friendship. It was like, the cookies will be here tomorrow. That's a great line for life, actually, isn't it? Oh, my God, what, no, but that's, I love the way you say that any other drama students, it doesn't often happen. but when it happens. I mean, that is the story

that every single person dreams of happening. Yeah, it was extraordinary and it was very good fan. And on the flight out, because I was a very, very serious actress who wanted to do classical theatre, I thought, if I don't enjoy this, I'm an idiot.

Just enjoy yourself. Take the direction. Don't argue with the director. Don't say my character wouldn't do that. When they tell you to do something, just do it. And I learned how to act on film from Kevin Kossner because he was directing and acting and producing. So we would do a shot and he would take me by the hand and walk me around to the monitor.

And none of this, you know, oh, I can't look at myself. I get so self-conscious. Watch what you just did. Now, that's not working because of this, this and this. And I need you to turn your face towards this light and I need you to look over here. And I learn from a maestro and love him or hate him or like his acting or like he's a acting or like. He's a really good actor and he knows about filmmaking and I learned from him. So he was a bit like my dream then.

He was a bit like a dream. There's some other stuff which I won't share with the group. You know, he, he was, you know, there were the weekend. There were the family weekends and then there were the other weekend. But he's a man I thank for my career to this day. Oh, wow. That's lovely. And then, of course, Bruce Willis.

I mean, the awful thing about the sixth sense is that everybody knows the last line, even if they don't see the film. And I wish nobody knew that. It's a sort of, I know it's a strange thing to put it as the mousetrap, but you don't want to know in the mousetrap that blah, blah, done it. Another thing, social media ruins is films with twisty plot twists and, you know, come back. I mean, that really, that was the very, very.

last film, I think, that was able to keep it secret because then social media killed the twist. I agree with you. I absolutely agree with you. And I still, so my kids who've never seen it know that end line and they'll quote it. And but I, and I've said to them, you need to see that film. It's just, oh God, it's brilliant. It's one of those, it's a classic, isn't it? It is. It is a great film. And it was interesting again, lockdown, you know, we had moved. night instead of it being once a week it was every night in our house and and I was managed to be aware I don't know how I managed to be away I must have been right at the end of the lockdown I had some oh no I had a hospital appointment in London so and that was the night because my children

don't like watching my movies but my husband put on six cents when I wasn't there which kind of seemed to make it okay and the kids were they were just wide out they were like oh my god that was amazing and it was and it was uh It, to have been part of something, I think, I think there is sort of, this is the sort of what I'm really proud of in my work is I think that I've been in films that changed filmmaking for, for a while or had, had a sort of, I think had lasting influence. And that, and that is something I'm, I'm, I'm thankful that I've been part of, of those things. I think the sixth sense was one. I think Rushmore was another. Oh, God, yes. You know, the very early Wes Anderson when he was 28 when we made Rushmore.

I was older than him and he was only 28. And it was such an aesthetic and such a, you know, it was the sort of return of a kind of auteur-driven filmmaking, which was so exciting. But can we go back to Bruce Willis though? I do want to go back to Bruce Willis. I haven't had that same dream about Bruce Willis, but I met him, wow, it would be a big breakfast days.

And there was something, I remember, I think Chris, Evans and I, we both, he was one, it was very silly. We both really blushed. I remember us getting really sort of embarrassed. It was the opening of Planet Hollywood, and they were all there opening it. And Chris and I just couldn't quite believe it. We were a bit sort of, ooh, who, it's Bruce Willis, ooh, it's Arnie. But Bruce Willis, the thing that struck me was he was much smaller than I imagined

and you imagine him such a sort of big, large, looming figure. Oh, but they all are. I actually, except Kevin, I think, all actors are shorter than you think they are. And, you know, as a 5 foot 9, maybe 5 for 8 and a half now woman, you know, that is a problem. I mean, I did an episode of Friends. and I was standing in a corridor

and this group of tiny weenie people walk past and that was then that was the cast of friends and I was like they're all tiny They are very small And yeah no I've worked with some some people Again all the profound I mean name an 80s sexy actor And I've snogged him I think

All in the line of duty all for work And they're all tiny Tom Cruise I haven't snogged him. I haven't snogged him. He's very small, though, isn't he? Yes, he's very small. But I was thinking who is a phenomenal and massively underrated, serious, brilliant actor, Antonio Banderas.

Oh. And he is just the best of men, funny and brilliant. And an extraordinary mimic and a great musician. But, yeah, great actor, very, very small. And his opening line to me when I met, we met when I'd been cast opposite him. And he said, hello, Olivia, shorter than you thought, right? Oh, bless him. It was his opening line.

That's so cute. So sweet. They are, actually. They're all very, everybody always asks me. The only one that I remember interviewing that I thought was Will Smith. I thought, oh, now, he's nice and tall. He's tall. Yes.

And Bill Murray, very, Bill Murray tall too. Okay, so you can, that's fine. Who I've worked with twice. So, yeah. What's he like? God, you know, it just depends. It depends what day it is what he's like. He's extraordinarily funny.

He's completely unpredictable. He can be very dark. He can be the brightest shining light and the darkest broodingest cloud. But he is brilliant and he takes his work again incredibly seriously. You know, he when we were doing Rushmore, he was preparing to play polonious in the Ethan Hawke filmed Hamlet. So, you know, and you can only go to the dark places that Herman Bloom in Rushmore goes to when you have access to darkness. And then he played, I was in a movie with him where he played Roosfeld, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a man in a wheelchair

who was profoundly disabled and managed to hide it from the world and the American public I played Ellen Rosevelt opposite him and and his understanding of disability and his profound political and sort of emotional love for FDR and what FDR did for his family and for America you know it makes me all sort of warm and slushy about hoping that Biden can do the same for America now that FDR did for it then but anyway yeah he you know he He's tall and he's extraordinary person could not be, again, described in 240 characters. I'm so pleased because that's exactly how I imagine him. He's one of the, he fascinates me.

He absolutely fascinates me as a person. Everything I've read, I mean, he doesn't do a lot of interviews. And that makes him even more intriguing. Let's talk about you and everything that you've gone through because you speak very openly about pancreatic cancer. it's a disease that nobody seems to talk about. I've interviewed a lot of people about it, the charity about it. I know two people who had it.

And it's so powerful when you read your story because you are a survivor. It's a disease that nobody talks about. And if people do talk about it, it still seems to be the cancer that people do in hushed tones. Years ago, I mean, you and I were the same age, and when we were younger, people would just say, cancer. You know, they wouldn't say the word out loud. And now they do through

breast cancer, testicular cancer, bowel cancer, which my dad had and survived, thank God. So all of those parts of the body people talk about. But pancreatic cancer, they don't. It's such a shocking cancer because it happened so quickly. And I think people, don't talk about it because you don't talk about it if you have it because 95% of people who

have it die within three months. The only reason I'm not dead is because I don't have a type of pancreatic cancer called adenocarcinoma. And the survival rates haven't changed for 40 years. So I think the reason I think they don't talk about it is because their relative, usually they're father, but sometimes their mother, will have died so quickly that they have PTSD. I think people who have been around people with pancreatic cancer, it's like they have been shot. It's so quick. And they've been shot in the stomach, in the pancreas, and you're having to watch them die for a sort of bullet wound incredibly slowly. So you're watching them ever way over a matter of weeks and not a matter of months or a matter of years.

And I think that people who that's happened to, if they are going to leave any money to anyone, they probably leave it to the hospice who eased this shocking time for them. And I don't want to take the money away from the hospices because thank God for them, they do an amazing job. But if you've lived with a cancer and had some sort of recovery or survival, that's when you get involved with the charity. That's when you give money to testicular cancer or breast cancer or cancer research.

But with pancreatic cancer, everyone's just bewildered. You're in shock. It happens so fast and it's so uncompromising. And the doctors, even the doctors are participating in this throwing your hands up in despair. I don't blame them for it because there is no research. There's nothing. And if you're a research student, if you're looking for a subject to research, Why would you go into something where everybody says it's hopeless?

So we're in a really difficult position. You know, it's so nice to have a bit more time to talk about it because what do we do as a charity as their ambassador? If I tell it like it is, everyone goes, well, what's the point of researching it? It's just going to kill you anyway. And if I put a happy, clappy face on it and go, let's all put on a silly hat and run to Brighton and raise money, you know, then nobody's hearing how serious it is. It's not funny and it's not a happy, clapy subject. And also, what's awful if you tell it like it is, anybody who gets that diagnosis

immediately goes into despair and says, I'm going to die. So I'm having to, as the ambassador for PCUK, be really careful of the people who've been diagnosed that we're not causing them further grief because they have despair. But I've also got to press upon the nation the urgency of change and the urgency of donating so that we can improve the situation. So I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place and I don't know what to do. I mean, what a place to be. You know, it's also your story about knowing for years that there was something wrong

and nobody could find it. And but you, there was something in you that just said, you know, you listened to your gut, ironic phrase, sorry, but just there's something wrong and we've got to do something about it. And it's just an extraordinary story. Well, Gabby, I wish I could claim that to be the case that I was sort of superhuman and super brave. I wasn't. I was just really lucky that I had the type of pancreatic cancer that didn't kill me because I, I went to the doctors and I did keep going back and I wasn't believed.

But I also spent a lot of that four years trying to convince myself that there was nothing wrong with me and to cope and to just keep going on. And I went and I had all the tests for bowel cancer and colon cancer. My dad had colon cancer and they did the test for those and they came up clear. And when they came up clear, I would go away and go, it's just my imagination. And so I'm not a hero. The only thing is it's incredibly lucky that I had the type of pancreatic cancer that grows very, very slowly. But by the time I was diagnosed, I was dying of starvation. I was dying because nothing was staying.

I would put something in one end and it would come out the other end practically in the same form it went in. I was just dying of starvation. and one of my darkest hours was sitting in this doctor's office and lovely nurse with a sort of wonderful South American Catholic name like Concepcion and she was trying to get blood out of a vein and she was so kind and we just both sat there sort of laughing and crying saying we can't get anything out of here I was so dehydrated I was so ill that they couldn't even take it. a blood test. So I you know it it was undeniable that I was ill by that stage and that's the

trouble is that by the time you are symptomatic undeniably symptomatic it's usually too late. And what we have to do is find an early diagnosis. This is the happy coffee that we have to find out what's wrong with you at a much earlier stage. That's why you have to keep reporting if you're feeling ill and if your bowel movements are weird over a long period of time and ask people to check your pancreas. Unfortunately, the only way to check your pancreas, it's so hidden away. Nobody knows what it is. Nobody knows what it does.

And the only way to have a look at it is to have a CT scan. You know, if you've got a lump in your breast, you can feel it and if it's really bad, you can see it. If you've got a lump in your testicles, if you've got lung cancer, you cough. But with pancreatic cancer, you just can't get at it. And the only time you know it's like that Joni Mitchell's song, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. And you only find out that your pancreas isn't working when it's beyond repair. When you tell this story, do you feel as if you're telling a story about somebody else?

No. Because my dad says sometimes he does about his bowel cancer. It was a long time ago for dad. But he says sometimes when he tells all the stories and then he had a stroke and he caught a super bug and all sorts. But when he tells the story, when I tell the story, no, he's in his 80s and he's doing well, thank you. But even when I tell the story, I just think, oh, did that all happen?

You know, it is, because it's still very recent for you, do you still believe that i think i'm a bit of an actor i'm you know i'm in the moment you know i go i'm afraid i do kind of go back and relive it and um i have to be a bit careful but i do think that one of the only sort of um you know it's doing press and letting uh not not with you go because this is a lovely intimate podcast, but doing press in some newspapers is a deal with the devil. And you have to protect yourself and your family, while also trying to put out there the work you're doing and the charity that you, and I'm trying to, something I'm really excited about is when I started

working with pancreatic cancer, I went to an amazing man called John Holmes, who you may know, who produces a program on Radio 4 called The Skewer, which mushes voices and sounds to create a soundscape and have people talking to each other that you don't know are talking to each other, who never have spoken to each other. So you might have Donald Trump talking to Greta Toonberg and he cobbles together a conversation between them.

And I wrote to him on his website for his production company, and I said these names, Pavarotti, Steve Jobs, one of the first women astronauts, Alan Rickman, what do they all have in common? And it's that they've all died of, and I didn't tell him the answer, I just asked that question. And he wrote back, what, what do they have in common?

And I said they all died of pancreatic cancer. Could you make a radio trailer, a kind of soundscape that had all these people talking to each other, to us, talking to us from the grave saying, do something. And he's done it, he's made it. And I just listened to. to the first draft of it, the first, his first run of it the other day. And it's such a powerful and exciting piece.

And I just want to rewrite the way celebrity and creativity and charity could work together to not just go, oh, you know, dial this number and donate money, or I'm running to, you know, round the block in a, in a, dressed as a cat to raise money. and or saying these many people are dying, it's so awful, help me. But just to try and change the message of charity and raising money. That's a brilliant idea. My God, I can't wait to hear that. It's so incredible talking to you about all of the ideas and the things you want to do, because to me, you're not, as you say, it was taking all the cookies,

that you're not somebody who sits around and waits for things to happen. Have you ever been like that? It's funny because as an actor I completely am. You know, there are actors. Really? Yes, there are actors. I mean, my husband, he's this amazing man. He writes TV shows and movies and I've got friends who become producers and, you know, like become executive producers. And then they are in a TV show and they direct episodes.

And I am just, I sit by the phone and wait for it to ring. And then when I'm, you know, I wait to have a part in something, I don't generate my own work. And I don't know why that is. People have come to, why don't you direct? Why don't you produce? But I think it's just, I love acting. I love, it's like when you're a teacher and you don't want to become the headmistress,

I don't want to be the headmistress. I want to be on the ground actor. and that's what my passion is. So I am slightly lacking in agency when it comes to creating my own work. Let's talk about Call My Agent because, oh my God, I was addicted and now it's coming to the UK

and you're a part of it? Yes. So what's going to make the British version extraordinary and very like respectfully and homage to the French version and make it a very British version is John Wharton, and he's just so clever.

And he did W1A and 2012. And he's such a brilliant writer and he's so clever. And he has done the British version. So it is going to be the same plotting and the same framework as the French one, but with some very British elements thrown in, which I think will make it funny and we'll make it part of our tradition.

And we'll make it different from the French ones. So that you could watch it again and kind of see the similarities, but enjoy the differences. It's very funny. And for anybody involved in my industry, the observations are just sort of painfully accurate, as W1A must have been for you and 2012 was for anyone involved in the Olympics. Oh, my goodness.

It is like going into work every day. Oh, I can't wait to see it. I was addicted to the French one. It was one of those ones that got us, another of those things that got us through at the extraordinary lockdown time that we all live through. And so many things that you were in.

I mean, I do, it's very funny because chatting to you, I felt like I knew you. You'd been in my house a lot over lockdown. It is a strange. It is a strange truth where you realize that I did sort of more stage and movies earlier, but the fact that cinema has come into our houses and I've done a bit more television, the fact that you are actually hanging out with people in their rooms.

And another strange thing that happens is because I've done some movies that disappeared, but because people were getting desperate, they kind of on earth, they sort of rose from the ground. during lockdown. And so some work that I thought I'd got away with suddenly started bubbling to the surface. A bit like a sort of body you thought you'd buried in the back garden. And then suddenly the mower kind of hits, you know, an obstacle and it's a bone of something that you thought was gone forever.

Anyway, you know, it's been very strange. The phone calls I've had, people going, I saw that movie. me. I was like, yeah, yes, no, that is me. I love that. I love that. What you, the other thing about you that I get now from chatting to you is, because we always ask everybody in this podcast, what makes you belly laugh, what makes you really laugh? So for you, what are the things that you just lose it over absolute hysterical laughter? My family around the dinner table, when we're on a, when we're on a role, We got it over the lockdown.

We were imagining the sort of, I mean, my children are teenagers now, so it's all out there. We were imagining porn version of social media. I don't know how rude this podcast. No, you can say what you want. My daughter came up with my favorite one was instant messages, as in instant messages. That is hysterical.

And then there was the obvious, you know, boob tube and I can't remember what other. But anyway, very, very silly. But she won with instant messy cheers. That wins. I have a really low lavatorial humour. I really thank God, you know, because of all my raising awareness about feces for pancreatic cancer. Fortunately, I have a lavatorial humour. so I don't, you know, I was, this will reveal all to the, to the nation. I was trying to do aversion

therapy for my addiction to chocolate because I shouldn't eat sugar anymore because of my poor old pancreas. And the, aversion therapist was trying to talk about things that I won't eat and I pretty well eat everything. I love all food and she was like, there must be something And so when we went into the sort of hypnosis of version therapy, she was talking about, you know, imagine that there is someone taking a shit on the chocolate. And I just spent the morning talking to Lorraine on her teleprong about how we shouldn't be embarrassed or averse to our own feces. And I stopped the whole hypnotherapy. I was just like, this can't work for me. I'm telling the nation that we shouldn't have a taboo about poo

and now you're trying to put it back again. That to me, that's a funny situation. Oh, my word. You see, you have to laugh. Those times you just have to laugh. And I love the idea. I just get the feeling from you is that, and obviously, you know, you say that you don't take things,

you wait for the phone call to go, but I still imagine you being quite gung-ho with a smile on your face. And from what you've just said, I think I might be right. So I think you're in denial. I think you are more like that than you realise. I'm very proactive. If there's something going on with the family, I'm, you know, if somebody needs something doing,

if someone says, can I do this or that, you know, I, yeah, I'm on it. There we go, you see, I was right. Yeah. I was right. You are right. Olivia, thank you so much. What a pleasure to speak to you. Such a pleasure.

I really, I just think you're fantastic. Thank you. And we will speak again, no doubt. I hope so anyway. And good luck with all the things you're doing, the things I can't say and all the things I can say. Thank you. And thank you for giving me lots of airspace to air my eccentricities to you.

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